Personal equation cards

Write a description of yourself in such a way that it could be no other person you know. Describe ideas and personality rather than physical appearance. (This can be a good way of finding out if the group you are working in notices what you consider to be the most essential and unique aspects of your person­ality.) All the cards in the group are then collected in a hat or a box. After they have been mixed up they are read out by one member of the group. The group has to identify who wrote each card. If the group thinks the card might belong to more than one person, or if anyone in the group says ‘That's just like me’, the author of the card must revise his or her description.

Unit 3. Men vs. Women

Introduction

A Russian joke: Вы никогда не задумывались, почему чех – человек, а чешка – тапочка, финн – человек, а финка – ножик; кореец – человек, а корейка – мясо; индеец – человек, а индейка – птица; болгарин – человек, а болгарка – пила; китаец – человек, а китайка – яблоко; испанец – человек, а испанка – грипп; непалец – человек, а непалка – это не палка?

“WOMAN WITHOUT HER MAN IS A SAVAGE”

When this sentence was given to a class to punctuate correctly, it was found that the boys took it one way, the girls another. We suggest the reader punctuate the sentence.

Recognizing Stereotypes

A stereotype is an oversimplified or exaggerated description of people or things. Stereotyping can be favorable. However, most stereotyping tends to be highly uncomplimentary, and, at times, degrading.

Stereotyping grows out of our prejudices. When we stereotype someone, we are prejudging him or her. Consider the following example: Ms. Smith believes all men look down on women and discount their capabilities. Whenever she misses a promotion at her job and a man receives it, she believes she was not chosen simply because she is a woman. She disregards any other possible reasons why she did not get the promotion. Why? She has pre­judged all men and will keep her stereotype consistent with her prejudice.

Task 1. Consider each statement carefully.

Mark S for any statement that is an example of stereotyping.

Mark N for any statement that is not an example of stereotyping.

Mark U if you are undecided about any statement.

If you are doing this activity as a member of a class or group, compare your answers with those of other class or group members. Be able to defend your answers. You may discover that others will come to different conclusions than you. Listening to the reasons others present for their answers may give you valuable insights in recognizing stereotypes.

1. Men are incapable of forming intimate and lasting friendships with other men.

2. Some men prefer to have many different friends and keep their personal lives and feelings out of the friendships.

3. Men only like to talk about sports and sex with other men.

4. Women and men have roughly the same number of friends.

5. Many men prefer activities to conversations with their male friends. Women, on the other hand, often prefer conversations.

6. Men cannot talk about their thoughts or feelings with other men.

7. A woman's real job is to be a mother.

8. Surveys have shown that in most cases, women even if they work are still the primary caretakers of children. Men are still the primary breadwinners in their families.

9. Men are bad for babies.

10. The more involved with their babies fathers are, the more successful the babies are later in life.

11. Babies and young children bore men and men resent having to help with child care. Men only like doing the fun chores.

12. Many women when they are younger get more practice at taking care of children. Consequently, women feel more at ease taking care of children than men do.

13. Men want to be macho and dominate women.

14. Men have realized that the old macho attitudes prevent women and men from establishing close relationships. Men have abandoned these attitudes.

15. Traditional roles for men are passe. Men have moved beyond them to become sensitive, caring people.

16. Men have taken on feminine characteristics but have not become any more respectful or open to women themselves.

17. Men's roles have changed not because of heightened feminist consciousness, but because the traditional role was boring.

Task 2. Female / Male preconceptions

Do you consider that women and girls have different personalities from men and boys? In groups of three list two attributes you feel are more characteristically female, and two male, then compare your lists with another group.

9 LISTENING

Task 3. Identifying comments the speakers make

You will hear a scientist and a radio reporter on an educational programme talking about male and female differences in animal species. During the interview they make various comments. For questions 1-16 indicate which comments are being expressed by Sally, the scientist, and which are expressed by Martin, the reporter, by writing

S (for Sally)

M (for Martin)

or N (for neither).

You will hear the recording twice.

1. We humans expect the animal world to behave as we do.

2. Turtle eggs are laid in the sand.

3. Only female turtles are hatched in sunny places.

4. After hatching, male and female turtles seek shady places.

5. There are no male whiptail lizards.

6. Fertilization of the lizards' eggs takes place just before hatching.

7. Whiptails are related to prehistoric creatures.

8. Whiptails retain some of the habits of their ancestors.

9. Female jacana birds eat more food than males.

10. Male jacanas build the nests.

11. Jacana eggs take a long time to hatch.

12. Female jacans often have more than one partner.

13. There are three different sexes in the cichlid species.

14. The female cichlid is less brightly coloured than the male.

15. Most people learn about these fish at school.

16. Some of these fish can change their colour.

Task 4. You will hear part of a discussion on a radio programme in which two teachers, Mary and David, are discussing making sense of the differences between women and men.

During the discussion they make various comments. For questions 1 to 9, indicate which comments are being expressed by Mary and which by David by writing

M (for Mary)

D (for David)

or N (for neither)

You will hear the recording twice.

1. Teachers expect boys to make a greater contribution than girls in class.

2. Girls are better at expressing their opinions in a classroom situation.

3. Girls do better in maths when there are no boys present.

4. It seems that there is no fundamental difference between male and female brains.

5. A real difference between male and female abilities poses problems for the educationalists.

6. Americans have taken male / female differences into account in their primary school curriculum.

7. I did some research into male and female roles in different countries.

8. Studies which prove that there are no male / female differences rarely make the headlines.

9. The answer to our problems lies in our genetic make-up.

9 LISTENING